SearchDigest

SearchDigest

Default?

Y

SearchDigest is an extension developed by Weird Gloop, the organization behind the RuneScape wiki.

SearchDigest creates a report of users' search queries that resulted in them going to the Special:Search results page. It does not log queries that ended in the user selecting a suggested result or an article being opened due to the exact title being entered into the search bar; therefore, it is merely a guide for what queries may need special attention (through redirects due to frequent typos or just to locate frequent topics missing articles) and not a log of all the things ever searched for. More often than not, a "failed" query (as indicated by SearchDigest) still produces the desired result.

How to use

1. Go to Special:SearchDigest
2. Observe the list of redlinks and the number of times they've been searched for. For each link, either:
   • Redirect that term to an existing page; or
   • Create a new disambiguation page at that location; or
   • Create a new content page at that location; or
   • Decide that this link isn't worth fixing (e.g. it might make sense that the term The does not resolve to anything). In this case, do nothing.

You will probably want to check this page about once a week to once a month depending on the size of your wiki.

How to decide what to do for each result

There are a few reasons a page might show up in SearchDigest. Your job as a wiki admin is to figure out why a term is showing up in the list and also how best to fix it. There is not a one-size-fits-all answer.

When you want to make a redirect

You should make a redirect if:

• The term is an alternate name or nickname for something in the game and it's clear what the intention is when people search this
  • Example: People refer to the character "Gangplank" as "GP" and "GP" has no other meaning in the game. Currently, "GP" is near the top of the SearchDigest list. You probably want to redirect "GP" to "Gangplank."
  • Example: The character Sona's title is "Maven of the Strings." There's a result in SearchDigest for "Maven of the Strings." You can probably redirect "Maven of the Strings" to "Sona."
• The term is obviously a typo for something else
  • Example: Your game has a character called Akshan. There's a listing in SearchDigest for "Ahkshan." You can probably redirect this pretty safely.

You should NOT make a redirect if:

• The term is ambiguous
  • Example: Your game has characters called Annie and Anivia. "Ani" is not a common nickname for either one, but it shows up in the list. Do not guess the desired target and create a redirect.
• The term is extremely generic
  • Example: Do not create a redirect for the word "The"
• The term is not being searched for commonly
  • Example: If your top entries have 1000 results, and this entry has 1 result, leave it alone for now. SearchDigest isn't like DoubleRedirects, and emptying the list is NOT a goal.

When you want to make a new content page

You should make a new content page if:

• The term is an umbrella category and currently lacks a page
  • Example: People are searching for the term "Champions" and you don't yet have a page explaining what a champion is (and, if you are using Cargo, listing all the champions in your game)
• You planned to make this page eventually but you thought it wasn't super important to do immediately
  • Example: You haven't gotten around to making item pages yet. You still don't have time to make ALL the item pages yet, but "The Bloodthirster" is near the top of your SearchDigest results. Go ahead and make that one item page now, and then get to the rest when you can.

You should probably not make a new content page if:

• The topic is covered in its entirety on another page. In this case, make a redirect
  • For example, if the character "Sona" has a spell called "Crescendo" and people are searching for "Crescendo" a lot, make a redirect to the section on Sona's page, don't make a new page.

When you want to make a new disambiguation page

Any time you make a disambiguation page based on SearchDigest, you should also include a link to the Special:Search results for the query, in case you guess wrong about what people are searching for when they type this. You can do this by writing: {{fullurl:Special:Search|search=Crescendo}}, where you replace Crescendo with the term you're making a disambig for. Wikipedia has a very complex template for this at wikipedia:Template:Search link - you probably don't want to copy this, but you can refer to it.

You should make a new disambiguation page if:

• The term is clearly a typo, but it's unclear exactly what it's a typo for
  • For example, if your game has a champion called "Ezreal" and an item called "Zeal" and the term "zreal" is showing up in SearchDigest
• It's unclear what the term is an abbreviation/nickname for
  • For example, if your game has both a champion called Twisted Fate and an item called Trinity Force, you might want to make a disambiguation called TF instead of redirecting to either page.

You should probably not make a new disambiguation page if:

• There are very, very few results for this search. A disambiguation page is only a small QOL improvement over the user simply using the search results directly, and curating disambiguation pages can be a lot of effort.
• Your wiki is very new, and you have other higher-priority things to do. Making disambig pages for Special:SearchDigest results is a pretty low-priority project.